This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. Hi, this is Pastor Tom and we are in week one, day two of our look through the book of 2 Corinthians. So we're in chapter one, we're going to look at verses three to seven today. In fact, let me begin by reading these verses. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it's for your comfort and salvation. If we're comforted, it's for your comfort, which produces a new patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. For our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, you also share in our comfort. " Paul talks here in verse four about all our troubles, and in this world we do have troubles. The truth is, whether you're a servant of Christ or not, you have troubles. Some people think that deciding to follow Jesus and become his servant means you're not going to have any more troubles in this world. The truth is, believers and unbelievers alike have troubles. The truth also is, there'll be certain troubles that come into your life just because you're a believer, the troubles of persecution, just because you're a servant, those who misunderstand you or those who are coming up against you. In all of our troubles, you're going to have troubles, you're going to have hurts in this life, and those hurts, you have to make a choice. Your hurts can either be held or they can be healed. They can be held or they can be healed. If you hold on to those hurts, Satan will be certain to use them to make you bitter. But if you trust Jesus to heal those hurts, not just physical hurts, I'm talking about emotional hurts, the pains that come into our lives and relationships, if you trust Jesus to heal those hurts, God will use them to make you and the people around you not bitter but better. I know any time we talk about hurts, there's two people, two groups of people that I'm talking to. Some of you right now, you're feeling, "I'm hurting right now. " And others, "Well, I'm sure there's hurts in my life, but I'm not feeling them as much right now. " If you're not hurting right now, you know someone who is. And the question is, how can God use you to comfort them? If you are hurting right now, the question is, how do you find God's help and healing? And how do you realize that God's help and healing isn't just for you, but he's going to use it someday to help and to heal someone else? As we talk through this servant's survival strategy, Paul as a bond-servant, a willing servant of Jesus Christ, we were reminded that servants don't always have an easy life. Paul certainly didn't. He faced personal trials at every turn as he served Christ. Tragedy in his life, opposition from those who felt threatened by him, people who were unappreciative. How did he survive? How do we survive? 2 Corinthians tells the story. And here in these verses, we hear about how do you survive despair, a feeling of despair? If you feel like God's servants never have those feelings, Paul did. And the principle is God will comfort us so that we can comfort others. That's how you survive it, by remembering that principle. How do you survive those kind of problems that drive you to a point of despair, feeling like there's nowhere to turn? There's a couple kinds of problems in life, I think. There are what I would call bothersome problems and burdensome problems. Bothersome problems are more like a mosquito. It's irritating, but their effect is mostly external and they can be dealt with fairly quickly once you get to dealing with them. But there's other kinds of problems, burdensome problems. Those are the ones that last a long time. They're usually about relationships, usually about people that we love, and those get under our skin. We live with them, we dream about them. It's the kind of problem that weighs us down. Paul had some burdensome problems. He was a real person like you and I. But burdens don't outgrow burdensome problems, they have to learn to survive them. You'd be amazed. I read a lot of biographies of great servants of Christ and how many great servants of Christ down through the years have had to survive feelings of despair, just like Paul expresses here. The Apostle Paul had them. As we read through these verses, there are two powerful truths from God that help us as servants to survive these burdensome problems. We're going to talk about one today and one tomorrow. The first truth is God comforts. I can survive because I realize I'm not in it alone. God comforts. God is willing to comfort you. God is, in fact, committed to comforting you. There are three principles in these verses, three to ten, regarding the comfort that God gives into our lives, and the first is that God is committed to comforting you. He cannot help himself. It is his character to comfort. He is the father of compassion, the God of all comfort. It's who he is. He is the source of all comfort. Far too often we all fall into this trap. We try to hold on to something that we think is making us comfortable, but the truth is all comfort comes from God. Even more tragic, there are things in our lives, sins and habits and hates that we think comfort us. Satan lies to us because they made us feel a physical thrill for a moment or an emotional connection for a moment or whatever momentary satisfaction that drug of choice gives you, whether it's an actual drug or it's lust or it's television or it's movies or entertainment, whatever it is, shopping, it can be a lot of different things. That drug of choice that comforts you for a moment, you begin to think that's your source of comfort, and Satan uses that to mess our lives up. Satan uses that to cause us in the moment that we need comfort to turn our back on the one who gives us real comfort. God's the source of genuine comfort. What is this comfort that God gives into our lives? I've used the word, what does it mean? I mean, a lot of us think of an easy chair, I'm sitting in comfort means relaxing. This word comfort is used nine times in verses three to seven. This is the place in the Bible to learn about how God comforts us. What does the word comfort mean? It means, it doesn't mean to escape. When the Bible says God comforts us, it doesn't mean he helps us to escape. If you try to escape your comfort, if you try to escape your problems and think that's your comfort, it never is. All you do is escape for a while, when you come back your problems are still there, we've all lived that one. No, the word comfort does not mean escape, it means to come alongside and help. It's the same word that Jesus used when he was talking about the Holy Spirit. He said, I'll send you another comforter, someone, a paracleto, someone who will come alongside and help. It's a tough word to express in English because it has so much meaning. It means comfort, it means encouragement, it means consolation, it means an arm around you for strength and a pat on the back for encouragement. God's willing to give that in your life. In fact, God is committed by his very character to give that in your life. So who are you turning to for comfort? God is willing to comfort you. That's one of the ways you survive despair. Comfort is a commitment of God. A second truth about comfort in these verses is comfort is transferable, it's shared with other people. God comforts me, not just for my sake, he comforts me so that I might comfort others. I don't always know the reasons why I'm going through a certain trial. I don't know all the reasons why you're going through what you have to go through. I found sometimes it's foolish to try to figure out all those reasons. I believe there is reason in the mind of God. I believe God can bring reason out of anything, but I don't know always why I'm going through this. Is it certainly something only that Satan has thrown at me? Is God using this circumstance in ways that I don't understand? I don't know all of that sometimes, but I do know this. I do know that God can always work the miracle of transforming my sufferings into comfort in my life as I turn to him, into comfort for another person's life as I allow God to comfort me. Our hurts develop our heart for others. Our hurts develop our heart for others. If you've never had a problem, if you've never had a struggle in your life, you look at other people and think, "What's wrong with them? " But once you've had a problem, you look at other people and say, "I can understand that one. I've been there. " Comfort is transferable. You allow God to comfort you, he's going to use you to comfort somebody else. Third truth about comfort in these verses, comfort is circumstantial. Paul says, "As our sufferings overflow, so our comfort overflows. " In many ways, God's comfort comes in reaction to our circumstances. This by the way is why worry is so devastating. When you worry about something that hasn't happened yet, how can God comfort you for something that hasn't happened yet? How can comfort overflow for a circumstance that isn't there yet? But once you face the circumstance, then the comfort is right there. Once you face and are in the middle of that thing that might cause despair, then God is there to comfort. And then you find yourself looking back on a circumstance you faced and thinking, "I don't know how I survived that. " But then you remember it's because of God's comfort. God's comfort overflowed in my life. I know some, many of us right now, we need God's comfort. So I want to pray for it in our lives. Lord, I pray right now that you would comfort us in our despair and our feelings of not knowing where to turn, not knowing what the answer is, not having it in ourselves to meet the need. Comfort us. Help us to know that you understand that you're there, that you're not going to leave us alone. Help us to know, God, that the comfort you're giving us right now, the love you're giving us as we go through this, you're going to use it not only in our lives, but you're going to use it to comfort others. Lord, thank you for your comfort that overflows in our lives. In Jesus' name we praise you. Amen. Tomorrow we're going to see a second truth together. God not only comforts, he also delivers.